A unique service has recently become available throughout the whole of the Americas and even portions of Oceania and Europe with the launching of the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Through cooperation with the United States National Bureau of Standards, a satellite disseminated time code is relayed from Wallops Island, Virginia to two stationary or synchronous satellites approximately 36,000 kilometers above the equator and geostationary. Time and data code signals along with observed satellite position information are transmitted by both satellites, the eastern and the western satellites. The time codes and information are available to any receiver capable of detecting and decoding the transmission.
The operational characteristics of the GOES satellites are described in Publication TFS-602 and titled NBS TIME VIA SATELLITES issued by the United States Bureau of Standards Boulder, Colorado 80302 on Jan. 1, 1978. Described in that publication and in the description below is the signalling format used by the satellites.
The operation of the satellite time system and a receiver capable of detecting, decoding and displaying time signals from the satellites is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,166 issued on Mar. 29, 1977 to Joseph V. Cateora et al and assigned to the U.S. Government.
The receiver disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,166 receives and decodes the time codes but has no provision for correcting for satellite errors or for time error corrections for the receivers actual position or to obtain true local, zone or UTC time. The net result is that the accuracy available via satellite time is significantly degraded in any known receiver with which we are familiar.